The present invention relates to hard disk data storage systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a unitary E-block assembly for use in a disk drive.
Hard disk data storage systems typically contain several magnetic disks on which data is stored in sectors which lie in concentric tracks on the disks. A transducer (or head) is mounted to a slider and flies above a track. While flying above the track, the transducer is controlled to write, or magnetically encode, data in a sector on the track. The head is also capable of reading the magnetically encoded data from the sector.
An electromechanical actuator operates within a negative feedback, closed-loop servo system. The actuator moves the head radially for track seek operations and holds the transducer directly over a track for track following operations. Typically, a stack of disks is mounted on a spindle. Each surface on each magnetic disk has one corresponding head. All heads are moved together by the electromechanical actuator to different tracks on the disk surface.
In a typical system, several transducers are used for reading data from, and writing data to surfaces on the magnetic disks. These transducers are referred to as data transducers. Disk drive control electronics provide a write signal to the data transducers to write data onto the magnetic disks. In addition, the drive control electronics receive the read signal provided by the data transducers to read data from the magnetic disks.
Another transducer is used with a disk surface that is dedicated to contain servo tracks having servo sectors encoded with servo position information. The corresponding transducer is referred to as a servo transducer. The servo transducer flies over the servo sectors as the disk rotates and produces a servo signal representative of the servo position information written. The disk drive control electronics are provided with the servo signal and, based on the servo signal control the electromechanical actuator in positioning the heads over the magnetic disks.
The read signal from the data transducers, as well as the servo signal from the servo transducer, must be conditioned before they are usable by the drive control electronics. The signal conditioning generally involves amplification. Also, the write signal provided by the drive control electronics must undergo conditioning before it is in proper form to be used by the data transducer in writing data to the magnetic disk. This conditioning also typically involves amplification.
In past high performance disk drives, the actuator was coupled to the data and servo transducers by individual support arms. A pair of transducers was coupled to an individual support arm by load beams. Also, conditioning or preamplification circuitry was mounted directly to each individual support arm. The preamplification circuitry provided the necessary amplification to the read or write signals (where the transducers were data transducers) as well as to the servo signal (where one of the transducers was a servo transducer). When the individual support arm assemblies were completed, they were assembled with a number of other support arm assemblies to form an actuator assembly.
However, the preamplification circuitry mounted to the individual support arms typically included at least one integrated circuit chip. The integrated circuit chip was mounted to the top or bottom surface of the support arm, and conductors were provided from the transducer to the integrated circuit chip. Also, conductors, or cables, were provided from the integrated circuit chip to additional conditioning or demodulating logic located on a circuit board mounted away from the electromechanical actuator in the disk drive. Assembly of the preamplification circuitry on the individual support arms proved to be difficult where the E-block was not formed of individual support arms.